The GRAMMY Foundation and The Recording Academy are partnering to present their first-ever Music Educator Award. The award is open to U.S.-based music teachers from kindergarten through college, in public and private schools. Anyone can nominate a teacher, and teachers may nominate themselves. Nominated teachers will be notified and invited Read more
In AEI’s Cage-busting Leadership and the Culture of Can’t, Frederick Hess argues that many district and school leaders operate under lore rather than legality. They believe their hands are tied, even when they are not, and implement restrictive policy simply because that is how it has always been done. Hess Read more
Recently, Joshua Starr, the Superintendent of Montgomery County Public Schools (MD), one of the wealthiest, largest, and high-achieving school districts in the United States, went public with his idea that there be a three-year moratorium on federally mandated standardized testing. He is not fundamentally opposed to all standardized testing, but Read more
Last year, we posted about the emerging issue of whether or not teachers should be allowed to sell their lessons plans for a profit (https://www.coreeducationllc.com/blog2/should-teachers-be-allowed-to-sell-their-lesson-plans/). More recently, this issue has cropped up in the greater Washington DC area. Prince George’s County Public Schools has recently tabled a proposal designed to Read more
A Los Angeles High School is trying to prove that more individual instruction can be provided with larger class sizes. How might they accomplish this? Alliance Tennenbaum Family Technology High School hopes that blended learning, a model which for this school includes a third of their class time in traditional Read more
A new report released by Education First suggests that states have made “significant progress” toward Common Core readiness. Education First and the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center have released Moving Forward: A National Perspective on States’ Progress in Common Core State Standards Implementation Planning. A sequel to last year’s Read more
AFT President Randi Weingarten recently reaffirmed the AFT’s commitment to increasing the standards for teacher certification. In a follow up to our previous post, American Federation of Teachers calling for an adoption of a bar exam for aspiring teachers, following are Randi Weingarten’s recent comments on the AFT executive council’s Read more
Aspiring teachers want more digital avenues for learning, says a new report from Project Tomorrow. The findings are included in the report Learning in the 21st Century: Digital Experiences and Expectations of Tomorrow’s Teachers, prepared by Blackboard Inc. and Project Tomorrow, which includes findings from the Speak Up for Aspiring Read more
Yet another report on school reform has urged reform in the area of school leadership. This report, entitled, “Operating in the Dark: What Outdated State Policies and Data Gaps Mean for Effective School Leadership” and produced by the George W. Bush Institute and the Alliance to Reform Education Leadership. What Read more
If the Common Core initiative is to have a chance to take off, a new strategy of professional development, coupled with thoughtful evaluation is necessary. This is according to Peter Youngs, writing under the auspices of the Center for American Progress. This new strategy requires reform of the current system Read more
In the first of what will be an annual report on leadership, Education Week’s Leaders To Learn From provides fifteen profiles on forward-thinking education leaders. The importance of effective educational leadership goes almost without saying: Some research suggests leadership is second only to classroom instruction among all the school-related factors Read more
Big changes may be coming in the way the Department of Education selects grant recipients. Last year, the Office of Management and Budget issued a memo to federal agencies requiring them to demonstrate the use of evidence in their fiscal 2014 budget requests. This new requirement signals a shift of Read more
Jason Delisle and Clare McCann at Ed Money Watch have put together a very helpful breakdown of what all of the Congressional complications surrounding the budget mean for education. We have shortened their summary into a few definitions of key terms to understand: Continuing Resolution: As of now, the US Read more
Free Webinar from All4Ed: Building on the Common Core State Standards to Improve Learning for English Language Learners Please join the Alliance for Excellent Education on Tuesday, February 26, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. (ET), for a webinar on how the transition to Common Core State Standards and Next-Generation Read more
In 2012, Microsoft announced a new professional development program called 21st Century Learning Design (21CLD), formerly known as “LEAP21”, that helps teachers build innovative pedagogical practices and develop resources for designing learning activities that foster higher order skills. It includes: practice-based professional development, so new ideas are used immediately in Read more
A new partnership between the non-profit group New Leaders and Pearson Education seeks to improve the performance of school leadership through the use of technology-backed professional learning opportunities. New Leaders, the non-profit organization whose mission is to develop school leaders and promote system-wide conditions for student success, is partnering with Read more